Then
at my entreaty, for I feared lest trouble should arise, he gave in and
returned to the house.

Following our path of the night before, we walked up a ruined street
which I could see was only one of scores in what had once been a very
great city, until we came to the archway that I have mentioned, a large
one now overgrown with plants that from their yellow, sweet-scented
bloom I judged to be a species of wallflower, also with a kind of
houseleek or saxifrage.

Here Hans was stopped by guards, Billali explaining to me that he must
await my return, an order which he obeyed unwillingly enough. Then I
went on down the narrow passage, lined as before by guards who stood
silent as statues, and came to the curtains at the end. Before these at
a motion from Billali, who did not seem to dare to speak in this place,
I stood still and waited.

CHAPTER XIII

ALLAN HEARS A STRANGE TALE

For some minutes I remained before those curtains until, had it not been
for something electric in the air which got into my bones, a kind of
force that, perhaps in my fancy only, seemed to pervade the place,
I should certainly have grown bored. Indeed I was about to ask my
companion why he did not announce our arrival instead of standing there
like a stuck pig with his eyes shut as though in prayer or meditation,
when the curtains parted and from between them appeared one of
those tall waiting women whom we had seen on the previous night. She
contemplated us gravely for a few moments, then moved her hand twice,
once forward, towards Billali as a signal to him to retire, which he did
with great rapidity, and next in a beckoning fashion towards myself to
invite me to follow her.

I obeyed, passing between the thick curtains which she fastened in some
way behind me, and found myself in the same roofed and sculptured room
that I have already described. Only now there were no lamps, such light
as penetrated it coming from an opening above that I could not see, and
falling upon the dais at its head, also on her who sat upon the dais.

Yes, there she was in her white robes and veil, the point and centre of
a little lake of light, a wondrous and in a sense a spiritual vision,
for in truth there was something about her which was not of the world,
something that drew and yet frightened me. Still as a statue she sat,
like one to whom time is of no account and who has grown weary of
motion, and on either side of her yet more still, like carya